)Letters to the editor: Soccer at the Trop

Regarding the Tribune editorial June 16, “Soccer in St. Pete a good match” (Our Views): I agree to a degree.

Although the Tribune is right in predicting that baseball at Al Lang is gone forever, there is a bit of a memory problem with the call for a bigger stadium on the waterfront in St Pete.

Don’t you remember the tremendous backlash and opposition that the Rays had with their waterfront stadium proposal? There is even more residential along the waterfront since that debacle, so I predict even more resistance from the locals with this stadium proposal.

The logical thing to do is to integrate the need for a new soccer stadium with the reality that the Rays will be vacating the Trop.

That site is ideal for a new soccer stadium — one that could even be incorporated into the existing structure, with the dome being replaced by a retractable roof.

Freeway access is abundant and expertly planned, and there is abundant parking in the surrounding area, compared to the waterfront.

If and when we get a public ferry from Tampa to the Pier and a real streetcar servicing Central Avenue in St. Pete, then the Trop will become even more desirable and convenient.

Rand Moorhead

St. Peterburg

Seeking a new beginning

No more wars.

No more getting our men and women killed or maimed.

No more lying to the people about imminent disaster if we don’t send our troops into terrible danger again — we haven’t even gotten them out of this fiasco.

Somehow, America has to find a way to stop being sent into war over and over again with no clear constitutional decision, when there has been war in some countries since the beginning of time. All we are doing is leaving our blood in their ground and bringing home body bags and maimed soldiers — somebody’s children.

Yeah, I’m angry and heartsick to see what is coming down the track again, and I’m feeling pretty helpless to even know how to be heard and make a difference. I vote. I vote the candidate, not the party, and look what a mess these two years have been in Washington.

How can we trust any of our politicians, from the top to the bottom?

Maybe it’s like my deceased husband said about drunks: “Drunks are all alike. You can put ’em all in a sack and pull one out, and they’re all the same.” I’m beginning to think politicians are all the same, too. Put ’em all in a sack, shake ’em up in an election, pull one out, and the beat goes on. Nothing changes but the faces.

I don’t know what it’s going to take for Americans to bring our country back to the Constitution and how we started out: “One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” This is referring to America, not the whole world. We get upset about what we perceive as wrongdoing, and in a twinkling of an eye or push of a smartphone button, our attention is diverted to the next crisis, and so it goes.

There is a beginning — prayer for our country and the world. My prayer is that with God’s help, someone will find the answers to give us a new beginning.

Jacqueline Thomson

Tampa

Prompt and professional

I wish to respond to the Letter of the Day “My trip to the VA” (Your Views, June 16). John Martini needs to specify which VA clinic or hospital supplies his medical services. His comments disrespect all VA facilities.

I also went to my VA facility (Bay Pines) for an eye appointment Monday and Wednesday of this past week. I also arrived on time for both appointments (10:30 a.m. on Monday and 10:20 a.m. on Wednesday), and the waiting room was full. Both times I was called on time and received prompt and professional service.

This applies to all my medical services, from regular checkups to heart catheterizations.

I also suggest that we go in the supervisor’s office and tell him or her how happy we are with the service at Bay Pines. They usually only hear from the whiners.

Sam D’Avico

Largo

Helping the community

I find some of the feats that go on in the Boy Scouts are overlooked. Our troop was asked to help in the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office’s Family Fun Day. To me that is huge. In Pasco there are dozens of other troops they could have asked to help, but they chose us.

What I am really trying to get across is that I think Boy Scouts should be recognized more often for the feats we do to help our community.

Joshua Coogle

Wesley Chapel

Storing emails

This is in response to Kirk Sexton’s “Lerner’s ‘lost’ emails” (Your Views, June 18) in which he stated, “It does not take an information technology professional to know email systems do not store your email on your desktop PC, and haven’t for decades (if ever).”

You don’t have to be an IT professional to know the difference between POP and IMAP email.

If Kirk were a Verizon FiOS customer, then he would have a POP email account, which is a Post Office Protocol account in which email is downloaded from the email server, stored on your local hard drive, and deleted from the email server after a specified period of time (like 30 days). This means that all email older than 30 days, in this example, is no longer available on Verizon’s email server.

This is just one reason why it is so important to have reliable backups of what you have on your computer.

For anyone who is confused about email and what is stored where, I encourage them to Google POP vs IMAP.